Author's Notes: Sorry this one took so long. I was out of town this weekend. Thank you so, so much to the folks who have been kind enough to comment! 3
The Long Road Home – Chapter 4
The train station in Chicago has a small window, too.
Behind this one sits a surly man with thick eyebrows and a squint. "Where ya wanna go?" he asks, disinterested, and the Soldier shows him the booklet that says "New York."
"Fifty-six bucks." The man sticks his little finger in his ear absently. He twists it one way and then the other, pulls it out again to examine the yellow glob on the end of it.
The Soldier does not know what bucks are, but he knows what's called for next. He retrieves the folded strip of leather from his jacket pocket. He removes the green paper that will get him onto the train.
But the man gives him nothing in return. "Nice try. Now how bout the rest?"
The Soldier looks at the green paper. He checks the folded strip of leather, to be sure. "That is the rest," he tells the man.
"Get lost, buddy."
The Soldier thinks that it would be difficult to become more lost than he is already, but he leaves the window, all the same.
Standing in the train station, he inspects his remaining paper more closely. This time, he counts the numbers written on it. Fifty-six, the man told him. Perhaps when his number and the number for the train match, he will be able to leave.
And so the Soldier falls in casually behind a woman with elaborate black hair and a neckline draped with silver and white stones. The bag in her hand hangs loosely, and she speaks with the woman beside her, unengaged with the rest of the room.
It is little challenge for his hand to find its way within the bag; stealth is, after all, a part of the Soldier's training. Her folded strip of leather joins the one already in his pocket, and then the Soldier slows, and the woman's pace carries her onward.
He waits until she is gone from view, then opens the folding pouch to discover what lies inside. He counts –
(– the dough one last time, just to be sure, and swears under his breath. The cashier, in his pressed button-up and bow tie, looks at him real close. "There a problem, mac?" There's not much in the paper bag on the counter: just a couple cans of soup, a bushel of potatoes, a tin of beef. But Steve's just about out of medicine, and that's got to come first. "No problem," says the voice that isn't quite the Soldier's. He picks the meat and one of the cans of soup out of the bag, and he sets them aside. "Just changed my mind, is all.")
– the numbers on the green paper that he finds.
When he finishes, his hands are unsteady.
He knows the total, but he goes through the motions again anyway, deliberately. It is strange, to hold the dough the way those flesh hands did.
The numbers add to forty-two, now. It would be easy as snapping a spine to find one more unsuspecting man or woman and complete the requested amount.
But the Soldier thinks, "I'll pick up some more when I get paid." He thinks, "Just changed my mind, is all." Staring down at the dough, not enough to get him on the next train, the Soldier feels an unfamiliar heaviness in his chest.
He wonders if the people who these bucks belonged to had plans for orange juice. He wonders if they will need medicine soon.
He returns to the window, to the man that sits slouched behind it.
"I need to go here," says the Soldier, and he shows the booklet again.
The man takes one more look at him and snorts, shaking his head. "Then I need fifty-six bucks."
"It does not have to be by train," the Soldier tells him.
"Christ," says the man, wonderingly. "The hell's the matter with you? Take the fucking bus, then." He waves one meaty hand at the Soldier. "Now get outta here."
Outside the train station, the Soldier's breath makes small clouds in front of his mouth. The change in temperature is sudden, the wind sharp as the edge of his combat knife. It is not long before he is aware of the metal of his own arm, chill to the touch.
The sensation commands his attention, but it is not a hindrance to the Soldier' progress. He walks east, past cars with flashing lights that scream out an alarm. He discovers that if he hunches forward, like the men and women that pass on either side of him, the wind does not seem so strong.
Before the Soldier has gone a block, his limbs feel heavy. Before he has gone two, his legs tremble. When he walks, the still-healing crust of the wound along his ribs tugs, just slightly, against the fabric of his shirt. His stomach shifts and gurgles, a solid ache. By the third block, the world spins with him when he turns his head. It is like nothing he recalls experiencing before.
But this sensation does not hinder the Soldier's progress, either. He ignores it.
On the forth block, he passes colored metal boxes on the corner. March 15, 1973, say the papers inside them. "Dean Cover-up Confirmed."
The Soldier looks at them as he moves past, but he does not slow. A man with a long face, neat hair and glasses stares solemnly out at him. The picture causes no images to flash behind his eyes.
Behind him, the Soldier can hear the wail of an alarm –
(– shrill and piercing. The fire is spreading, the room filling with smoke, but the target lying on the bed has not burned, yet. Her eyes bulge, sightless; he can make out the marks of his metal fingers, livid and red on her throat. "It must be an accident," says his handler's voice, in the Soldier's memory. And so the Soldier retrieves a plush lump of fabric from the bed with metal fingers. He presses it against the wall, where the flames are spreading, and watches as the fire licks at it. When it is ablaze, he places it on the bed again. The fire races out like a bullet from the barrel of a gun, overwhelms the cloth and the target. Within moments, her hair has caught, and the flesh around those staring eyes blackens and begins to bubble. Satisfied that there will not be enough left of her to prove his involvement, the Soldier turns to go.)
– and more cars flash by him, boxy and white, with lights that pulse out an even rhythm.
The Soldier's takes in a slow, ragged breath, then lets it out again. He can remember the woman's face, with delicate brows and a mole below her left eye.
The Soldier thinks that the man in the theater, that man with two flesh hands, would have liked a dame like that.
He wonders, for perhaps the first time ever, why his handlers had wanted a person dead. He finds himself thinking that, if they knew how badly his programming had slipped, they would be very displeased, indeed.
Behind him, down the street, there is a commotion. The sirens have not abated, and there are voices raised. The Soldier glances back to see that men in dark blue uniforms have swarmed the street near the train station.
The sight catches something in him. It connects to his last thought and turns over in his mind, and the Soldier's eyes go wide in sudden understanding.
He moves without thinking, takes a hard right into the narrow alleyway that runs perpendicular to the main street. He steps over the man that lies sleeping against the wall, draped in newspaper. When he reaches the chain link fence at the walkway's end, he grips it with his metal hand, vaulting over.
The Soldier is seventeen blocks away before he stops. The sirens are not audible here, and he does not see any men in blue. He is swaying slightly on his feet.
The door beside him displays a sign that reads "Pie Like Your Ma Used to Make." The Soldier pushes it open and steps into a room full of tables and padded red benches. The warmth is sudden and complete, and the smell makes him momentarily dizzy. It is sweet, and strange, and the Soldier thinks that the man with two flesh hands might have known it once, long ago. It is tentatively familiar.
He finds that his mouth is wet. His stomach twists tighter, and he swallows hard, determined to ignore it.
A woman approaches him, shriveled and bent. She does not walk straight, but meanders from side to limping side. The Soldier finds it a wonder that she can stand at all; by the time she reaches him, he has estimated twenty-nine points at which her brittle bones would shatter with only a tap.
"You in for the pie, sonny?" she asks him, in a voice like creaking metal.
The Soldier does not know what pie is. The sign in the front claims that his ma used to make it, but the Soldier does not know what his ma is, either.
"I need to take the fucking bus," he tells her, instead.
She blinks out at him from behind thick, round glasses. Her already-creased face creases more deeply when she frowns. "You better watch that mouth, boy, if you want directions."
The Soldier does not know if he wants directions, but her tone makes the rest an order. He presses his mouth closed, makes a firm line of it. Then he nods, to show that he will comply.
She looks him over, stares hard at his face. "Out the door and to your left. Take a right on Royce, then keep on going till you hit the Steak and Ale." She crooks a stick-like thumb toward the street. "Cut through the lot and the station's on the other side. You won't miss the sign."
The Soldier nods again, and he keeps his mouth closed, as instructed. He turns to go.
"What," says the old woman, "no thank you?"
The Soldier looks back at her, at the wrinkled lines by her mouth, deeper now with disapproval. If one of his handlers had looked at him like that, the Soldier would have known to expect a correction. He does not know what to expect from this woman.
"Thank you?" he asks.
The old woman waves one hand at him dismissively. "Sorry excuse for one," she tells him. "Go on, now, out with you."
The Soldier nods again, carefully. Then he turns from her piercing stare and lets himself back out into the cold.